Craigslist Scams

Craigslist is rife with scams. It is a natural thing for scammers to gravitate to a free service, because it is in their nature to get something for nothing. It's a shame because Craigslist is such
a a great service and it hurts to see people taking advantage of it and degrading it. So I wrote this chapter to alert you to the indicators that will allow you to spot a scam a mile away and steer clear of it.

The Nature of a Scammer

In my opinion scammers are the scum of the earth. Like I said earlier, they want something for nothing, which is the mindset of most criminals. They infect good things and spread and cause a great amount of trouble and annoyance. They do not have a conscience, and if they do it is pea-sized. They don't care about you, they don't feel bad about what they are doing (some of them actually think they are doing nothing wrong), and they will make your life miserable if you let them.

Scammers love the Internet because they are able most of the time to easily keep anonymity. They don't want you to know who they are. And the Internet is famous for hiding identity.

Luckily for us, they usually give enough clues for alert users to spot them so they can steer clear. and that is the subject of this chapter. How do you spot a scammer?

Bad Grammar

I would say this is the number one tip off in spotting a scammer. Many scammers reside in non-english speaking countries. I personally don't know why they don't learn to speak it better if they want to scam us, but they don't. Therefore, their posts or emails are usually composed of bad or terrible grammar. Some of them use translating software to translate from their language to english and these software packages usually do a terrible job and are sometimes even comical.

Spelling Mistakes

Another key indicator of a scammer is an overabundance of spelling mistakes in the post or email. OK, some of you may not be the best spellers in the world. I know that and you know that. That is why we are looking for an OVERABUNDANCE of errors. Scammers often can't spell two words right in the whole listing.

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